


Magic and Night Vale

by Nyx (Astriea)



Category: Magic School Bus, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, M/M, back stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:41:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1829908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astriea/pseuds/Nyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos Ramon was first introduced to magic in third grade. Her name was Valarie Frizzle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write something like this for a while. I'm not sure whether this is in the "he should have known better" verse or not. I left it vague for that reason.

Carlos Ramon was first introduced to magic in the third grade. Her name was Valarie Frizzle. She was also his new teacher.  
Being a child, this was an incredibly easy thing to accept. He was more concerned about whatever crazy, wonderful, field trip he was being taken on this time than the idea that this shouldn’t be possible. (Years later, confronted with desert heat, glow clouds, and the realization that the town that he had agreed to live in for a while just didn’t make sense and was fine with that. He realized that was probably the reason why she had chosen to show the world to third graders.)  
For a whole year, his world had become magic. He, along with his other class mates, went on magical field trips. They went on a tour of the solar system and the ecosystems of a log. They toured the water cycle and the inside of a volcano. They baked a cake for their teacher while being around the size of butter due to a partially broken bus. (Not one of them died. They certainly came close to it but they never actually died. Nothing that they did ever required human sacrifice.)  
This was what had gotten him so interested in science. Before this, school was something that his dad had made him go to. There had never been any point in his school work besides making him go through mind numbing torture. He never was really any good at it. (In the years after, his grades improved drastically. Though, it was never really because he cared about letters on a sheet of paper. School was just the easiest way to learn the most things possible and if he got good grades in the process, well he was not going to complain.)  
For a whole year his life was magic. For the first time he dreaded the month of June, by the time that September of forth grade rolled around however, he sadly felt the magic roll like oil off of his skin. It left a sort of invisible residue that he desperately tried not to wash off. (When the magic returned, it was a different kind of magic. It clung to him like clay smeared on skin. Impossible to get rid of without some sort of soap and water that Night Vale wasn’t allowing him to have. This type of magic was less wonderful and more terrifying and contradictory but, as he explained later still to his amazingly understanding boyfriend, it was still magic.)  
(That was the reason he came to Night Vale.) As he grew up, his third grade adventures became less real and more like the sort of dream that you keep wondering at how real it felt but is still a dream. (He was told later that those types of dreams might actually be real. Some times when rips in other dimensions get close enough to this world, you have a sort of telepathic mind exchange with your doppelganger in the other dimension. The entity that told him this was in some sort of trance most likely cause by “alcohol harvested out of the anger in human souls that ferment in us all,” this was a special at a bar that came to Night Vale every other Friday. He was still dragged off to the abandoned mine shafts by the secret police when he left the bar.)  
He wasn’t the only one who wanted the magic back. All of his class mates went off to wonderful careers in amazing places. Not all of them went into science but they still did great in their respective fields. For him science was the only option. He never stopped believing that there was magic somewhere in the universe and he was going to find it whether it wanted to be found or not. (Night Vale being “the most scientifically interesting community in America” seemed as good a place to start as any.)  
He survived a year in Night Vale. He lived through wormholes to the past and sandstorms that made murderous doubles. He lived through getting a haircut and the local radio host’s reaction to it. He lived through the rules of science and reality going out on and extended lunch break and never coming back the same. He met nonexistent angels and stayed away from the dog park.  
He went on a date with the radio host after receiving a wakeup call about how ridiculous he was being in the form of an unfriendly miniature invading army. Through the process of osmosis and near death experiences and being told via mute messenger child that he was now a citizen of Night Vale, he found that he didn’t want to leave.  
Then a revolution failed and his boyfriend got captured and put in an extended company picnic from hell. He missed a good deal of this because he had gone exploring in the house that doesn’t exist. When he came out of the door, he found himself in his third grade school reunion.  
“Hello Carlos, I tried telling you about this but then I realized that you were in Night Vale. I had to take drastic measure to make sure that you got here on time. I got this note for the sheriff so you don’t get into any trouble for leaving. How is my home town doing by the way?”  
Carlos the scientist, wearing a very dusty lab coat, sneakers and some sort of fluid stain that he gave up on washing out of said lab coat, stared at his former teacher and class mates in shock. His teacher was smiling brightly at him and his classmates were looking at him with poorly disguised amazement.  
“Well,” he said. “That actually explains a lot. It’s a very long and complicated story. Can I have some cake first?” (He wondered if he wasn’t shocked by all of this because of his extended stay in Night Vale or because Mrs Frizzle had caused it.)


	2. Reunion

When Carlos finished answering his teacher, he felt a sort of pressure change that reminded him of how you feel when you leave an air conditioned building for a hot summer day. It was like he had been pushed here by a high pressure wind. He imagined that the the last gusts of it were licking at his back. (Psychedelic colors mixed with various native smells, that were even now recoiling back to their town is horror when they realized that the poor children who went to this school didn't even have the rights to sentient whiteboards. Or maybe they just didn't like the cake.)

Ms. Frizzle walked over to a chocolate sheet cake with the words Welcome Back Class of 1994 on it. She then cut Carlos a big piece of it and handed it to him.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully, feeling his mouth water at the sight of it. (He hadn’t had food that he wasn’t one hundred percent sure wouldn't have some nasty side effects without the proper counter curse since the ban on certainty a couple of months back.)

“Oh, you’re welcome Carlos. But don’t thank me, thank your classmates. They were the ones who went out and brought it. Carlos guiltily looked up at them. He hadn’t seen some of them for years and here he was pigging out on cake.

“Um, hi. It’s great to see you guys.” They were looking at him oddly. (Was it the longish hair or the fact that he was covered in dust? Maybe it was the lab coat, he only really started wearing them all the time when he moved to Night Vale. Or the scar on his cheek. He was sure that he didn’t have that the last time that he had seen any of them. He decided to stop worrying about it.)

It struck him that they all seemed normal. They were great sure, and definitely some of his best friends. But there was no way any of them could possibly understand what he had lived through in the past few years. They didn’t even know what the proper way to track down a realtor for the Glow Cloud’s (All Hail) sake.

Surprisingly enough, it was D.A who was the first to approach him. She stopped for a second right in front of him. He smiled uncertainly at her. She then, much to his surprise, threw her arms around him. “Oh Carlos, ever since Miss. Frizzle told us where you went, we were so worried about you. Why didn’t you come home sooner?”

He uncertainly put his cake free arm around her shoulders. “Well, (he refrained from saying ‘scientifically speaking’, no one here would be impressed by it.) Night Vale is my home. I don‘t think that I could leave it even if I wanted to.”

D.A pulled away from him then. “But why, isn’t it dangerous?”

“Well, it is a very interesting town, and I don’t think that Cecil is allowed to leave his job. Certainly not with his new bosses. Though I don’t think that his old ones would have allowed him to go either.”

“Oh yes,” she tactfully refrained from asking him why he was referring to Night Vale as home. “Miss. Frizzle told us about him. You will have to bring him around here sometime.”

“What?” he let go of his cake in surprise and D.A had to catch it before it hit the floor. “She knows!” While he had mostly gotten over all of Night Vale knowing a lot more about his love life than normal, there was still something unsettling about his teacher knowing.

“Yeah man, she told us she still listens to the local radio. Apparently your boy friend likes your hair. ” Out of all of them, Ralphie was the one who seemed to change the least over the years. The sports Scientist still wore a baseball cap, still participated in various athletic activities, and could still try rival him with bad puns. Having had a long tradition of teasing Carlos about his various love interests, it seemed that Cecil was going to be no different.

“Please don’t tell me that you all have listened too.” Carlos didn’t think that it was humanly possible to blush any more than this. Especially when he realized that everyone in the room probably knew exactly why he kept his hair this long.

“No Carlos, that is normally very nearly impossible.” His teacher beamed at him. (Like he had just scaled hidden gorge while reciting the periodic table.) “But really, what kind of teacher would I be if I let you go to Night Vale without monitoring you?”

D.A smiled and and wordlessly handed Carlos back his cake. “Well,” Ms Frizzle continued, “I must confess that I didn’t know that you were going to Night Vale at first but I happened to be listening to Cecil’s broadcast the day you arrived and decided that since it too late to ask for you back, the least that I could do was listen in.”

By now, his classmates had gathered around them, anxious to see if the stories that they had been told over the course of the reunion (it had started around an hour ago) were true. Sensing the lull in the conversation, Wanda decided that now was the time to try to talk to Carlos herself. “Hey Carlos, I heard about some of the stuff that you did there, for a wimp, you're almost cool.”

“Almost? Just because I refused to do that one bet back in tenth grade does not make me a wimp for life.” Carlos had no idea what he would have to do to make Wanda realize that he was not as much as a wimp as she stubbornly seemed to think.

“ Oh please,” she rolled her eyes good naturedly. You act like it would have killed you.”

“Yes, I really do think that jumping over that fire pit would have killed me. Just because some guy on some tv show did and lived doesn’t mean that I could. (He didn’t mention that in Night Vale jumping over things that are hazardous to your health, fire, acid, midterms, was a popular pass time.) To be fair, he had been bragging that night that he, ‘must have frog genes because I can jump super high,’ and Wanda’s dare was only a joke, but she would use any excuse to tease her friends.

The following argument, which quickly devolved into a group wide bragging contest, made Carlos forget why he was here. For two hours after that, Ms. Frizzle’s class of 1994 talked about the past, and the future, and what was happening to them now.  
Carlos told them about his life as it currently was. About his job, and Cecil and some of the Draconian laws that he had to live under. (D.A in particular was peeved about the anti writing utensil laws and Ralphie was shocked about the wheat and wheat by products ban. Then Keesha teased him about how no wonder he was staring at that cake so much.) And Cecil, his friends wanted to hear all about him and he was happy to oblige.  
In exchange, he congratulated Arnold and Phoebe about their upcoming wedding and promised to try his best to come. (And yes, of course he will bring his boyfriend. What is he now, chopped liver? Oh, he is. Thanks guys.)

He heard stories about D.A’s career as a reporter and Tim’s as an author of a popular comic book. He made Ralphie promise to contact his dad and little brother and tell them that he was still alive and that he loved them. He was not sure when he would be able to do that next.

He hugged his friends when they left to go back to their lives. He imagined that the magic was rolling off their backs when they walked out the door. That was good, he decided. Some magic just wasn’t made to leave the person who created it.

Then they were gone. 

Seeing that he was not ready to leave yet, Miss Frizzle invited Carlos back to the bus. The bus obligingly made a shower that he could use and washed his clothes by the time that he gotten out. (It was the first time in months that he had had know for certain that he was completely sand free.)

 

The bus had also made a kitchen. Miss Frizzle had made him dinner. Pasta with cheese and pesto. She told him that he needed to eat more, he was looking kinda thin. He told her that she would have to thank Cecil for the fact that he remembered to eat at all. And the faceless old woman who secretly lived in his home. She said that needlessly starving people distressed her. 

“Ms. Frizzle?” 

“Yes Carlos?” 

“Why did you leave Night Vale?” Now that he knew what her hometown was, he wondered how he could have possibly not guessed it before. Maybe it was the fact that she was nice and didn’t seem to have shadows in her soul.

“Ah, I was wondering when you were going to ask that. Well, its complicated.” She paused then, as though trying to find a find the best way to phrase a story. “I knew that there was something outside of Night Vale. Something different. While most people in the town thought that different was frightening and strange, I knew that was not all a world could be. Well, I have never been known for having an over abundance of common sense.” She shrugged in a self-deprecating way that she never would have done back when he was in in the third grade.  
“What I found was, well, magic. From the moon, to laws of physics to how plants grow. It was all so new. Still is.” Carlos could understand this. He doubted that he would ever stop being surprised by the desert town.

“Yeah, I know.” 

For a while they ate their past in a comfortable silence. After a second and third helping, (Miss Frizzle insisted and Carlos hadn’t realized before how hungry he was.) He asked the other thing that had been on his mind. “I’ll have to go back to Night Vale through that door, wont I?” He knew that there was a possibility that Miss Frizzle could just drive him back to Night Vale. But that would be too easy.

“I wish that I could help you Carlos, but you have to get back to Night Vale by yourself.” Carlos had a feeling that she knew what was coming. Like this was a brief rest before something horrible happened. And she could do nothing to stop it.

“Yeah, I know. I’m a little too old to let my teacher fix everything for me.”

“Yes, you grew up.” She then gave him a brilliant smile. “I’m proud of you, you know that right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Carlos?”

“Yes Miss. Frizzle?”

“Before you go, I just want to warn you, there are places in the universe where things just don’t make sense. Where dimensions meet, and as a result, weird things happen. There are places in this world where your life can be rewritten in no time at all. The person who you were before isn’t erased per say, you will recognize things from your old life if you come in contact with them. Maybe you won't be conscious of doing it, but something inside of you will. The human mind is a marvelous thing after all.”

Something like urgency entered her voice, like she was warning him of a real danger that applied to him. “You must be careful in places like Night Vale, not to forget who you were. For you memories are not the only things that you can lose. Or gain for that matter.” 

“Don’t worry Miss. Frizzle. I could never forget you. Or my friends and family.”

“Yes, I know Carlos. Just be careful ok?”

“Ok”

He hugged his teacher before he went back through that door.


End file.
